


Research Notes

by HeraldicMage



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, brief use of second person pov, collection of character-written notes, potentially loose interpretations of lore, tags to be added as they appear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 15:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13056747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeraldicMage/pseuds/HeraldicMage
Summary: Like any well organized Warlock, Avin Xurihl has a habit of keeping his personal notes and journals tucked in amongst his research.  All it would take would be enough curiosity for someone to go picking through them.





	1. Notes on Old Chicago

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a few years since I've really sat down and written anything, so I thought I'd have a bit of fun as I try to get back into the swing of things. So this is going to be a collection of in-character notes as I try to figure out my Guardian's voice and story. They may not always be chronological, but should I start jumping around in his timeline I'll be sure to make a note of it somehow.

_ (Tucked into a ragged journal containing notes on the Traveler’s energy readings compared to readings from the Shard, are a few loose leaf pages.  The pages are covered in ink and water spots, one of them even looks taped back together.  Closer inspection reveals it appears to be more of a personal journal…) _

 

Despite all the notes I've taken, observations I've logged, reports I've filed....this is the first time it's ever felt strange bringing pen to paper.  Leshya asked me why I'm doing this, but I wasn't able to give him an answer.  For a researcher, I'm able to give very few answers these days.  I keep telling myself that this is just to keep a record, add to recorded history should tragedy strike again.  Part of me just thinks that hiding in the distant past will distract from the pain of the recent past.   
  
I've always wondered why Guardians are Chosen.  It's been one of those pressing questions for almost as long as I could remember.  What made me so special, or perhaps cursed?  Why is it that I got to wake in the midst of a waterlogged city with the Void singing in my bones, all while looking at the scattered bones of others that were singing only with the water lapping against them.   _ (The last part appears to be scribbled out and rewritten a couple times.) _   
  
Leshya found me in Old Chicago.  The first thing I saw when I woke was a crumbling skyscraper.  The first thing I felt was the slimy puddle I was sitting in.  Leshya claims there was nowhere better to rez me,  and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.  But only just.  From what I understand, many Guardians feel a sense of something that drives them to make the journey to the Tower.  To the City.  To the Traveler.  I vaguely remember Leshya, who was known only as Ghost then, trying to find some means for us to get there.  More strongly, however, I remember not understanding why.     
  
It was easy enough to understand the importance.  I was a newly shambling dead thing with powers beyond my comprehension.  The smartest course of action of course would be to find those who could teach me.  But instead, all I felt was boundless curiosity.  There was no telling how long I'd been dead, but I did know that there were secrets to be found all around me.  Golden Age knowledge was almost always worth its weight in glimmer, after all.  Looking back, I honestly can't remember if Leshya didn't try to push me to the Tower, or if I just didn't understand where he was trying to herd me.  Or if I even recognised he was trying to herd me at all.   
  
It almost certainly would have been smarter for me to go to the Tower, learn to shoot, learn to use this Void Light, before I set to exploring a derelict city.  But the pursuit of knowledge often leads to less than intelligent decisions.  Something I'm sure other Warlocks are at least slightly familiar with.  Needless to say, I died my second death in Old Chicago.  Waking up in the mud and water was even worse the second time.  I often wonder if Guardians, as a whole, really remember to appreciate their Ghosts.  Light be damned, we'd be nothing without them.     
  
The thought of having to live without Leshya fills me with terror.  A terror so bone deep I've only felt a comparable level one other time.   
  
_ (The previous two sentences are crossed out.  Only halfheartedly struck from the record.) _   
  
It was a month before I felt the pull to the Traveler.  Now I wonder why that was.  A question of the same curiosity as to why we're Chosen in the first place.  I had been growing used to the quiet hum of the Void in my bones and Leshya's gentle presence in my mind when I felt it.  More than the Void, more than my bond to Leshya, there was a tug at my entire existence.  Leshya felt it too, of course.  I think he was mostly excited to go home.  To show me his home.  To help me make it my home.     
  
I didn't think about Old Chicago again until the Red Legion attacked.  Most Guardians, as I understand it, got that peculiar dream in the aftermath.  We all assume that it came from the Traveler, and I see no reason to question that.  What made me think of Chicago though, was making a trek through the Dark Forest with two others.  Upon reaching the Shard, the other Warlock with us gained her Light back.  I thought back to Chicago, and the month I spent exploring before feeling the Pull.  What if there is some sort of scale to how us Guardians are Chosen?  Something we would never notice, if not for the fact that we were faced with a second chance to be Chosen.

 

I'm not sure it really matters, either way.  In the end, the Traveler either Chose you or not.  And if you were Chosen, well, at the risk of sounding like a Titan, then perhaps you have a duty to do something with the gift you were given.

 

I'd like to go back to Old Chicago, maybe sometime soon.  I doubt I'll find more answers to my questions there, as opposed to what I could find here with the Shard.  But maybe I'll find answers about me.  I don't remember there being much to go off of when Leshya first found me, but I'll admit I didn't think to look much.  The shock of being brought back to life was a bit much to worry about anything else.  It's been at least 15 years, I think, so I doubt I'll find anything.  But what's a Warlock but someone who does stupid things in the name of chasing knowledge?

  
_ (The entry is signed, but like the rest of the page, speckled with stray drops of ink.  It's just possible to make out the name, Avin Xurihl, though.) _


	2. Notes on the Void

_ (For as organized as the contents of his research journals tend to be, there appears to be yet another set of pages stuffed somewhere they don't belong.  In the middle of a section of Dark Forest observations, another personal journal can be found, however this one almost reads more like a proper paper.  Though, perhaps just a first draft, or an abandoned draft.  These stray pages appear singed at the edges, and you have a hard time reading the words, the ink giving the impression of luminescence and unreality.  You wonder perhaps if someone tried to burn the pages, but you slowly carry on with your attempts to read.  If you were going to pick through someone else's journals, you at least weren't going to walk away empty handed.) _

 

Combining void and light seems like it would be counterintuitive. Perhaps normally it would be, but when you add proper capitalization into the equation, then Void and Light go together as naturally as food and water.  If you were to ask ten different Guardians their opinions of the Void, you'd likely find yourself getting ten different opinions.  At least eight.  

 

It's true that Void can be more...dangerous than Arc or Solar.  But for others, or perhaps just with the correct view, it can be as much a comfort as any other flavor of Light.  At its core, Light is Light, and all that changes is its presentation.  The most common lesson taught in regards to the Void is to respect it. While that is an important thing to remember, I believe that it's no more important to respect it than it is to respect Arc or Solar.  The othering of Void, despite good intentions, could do just as much harm.  When all one hears are the tales of those have been lost, or those burned or drained by the Void, an innate discomfort, if not fear, can develop.

 

And like any tool, if you fear what you use then you're liable to hurt yourself or others.

 

The Void is as dear to me as any friend.  It's the most reliable tool I have, beyond my own knowledge.  It's the form my Light takes, and its absence is more hollow feeling than the namesake.  While respect is all well and good, one has to be wary of crossing the boundary between respect and timidness.  It's impossible for me to forget the power that Void has.  I'm reminded every time I reach for an enemy and feel the Void tear the life from their body, only to loop it back to soothe my wounds and feed my strength.

 

I've never met a Sentinel, though I can only imagine that they're just as fierce as their Arc and Solar counterparts.  In fact, I'd be inclined to believe them more so.  While all of us Guardians protect in some way, the fact that Sentinels have taken the name they have, and forge their Light into a shield...well, they seem to go a step farther than the rest of us.  Never mind that they forge their shields with Void.  That I find the most curious.  As well as feeling it reaffirms my claims to the Void being a comfort.  Like Arc and Solar, it all comes down to how it's used.

 

On the reverse, you have Nightstalkers.  I have the pleasure of working with one regularly, and unless you find comfort in the Void, it's easy to see how so many horror stories came to be.  Name alone lends to the intimidation, not even considering other weapons or even their Light itself.  But with seemingly little effort, assuming you can even see them, they're able to pull a bow from nowhere.   Perhaps its tethering capabilities could be read as a defense, but the arrows always seem to find their mark, escape impossible from the tethers, the Void burning more th--

 

_ (The rest of the section is illegible.  You hope it's just scorch marks blotting out the words.  However, you can't ignore how your nerves have been set on edge.  Only a paragraph remains, however, so you take a deep breath and continue on, perhaps out of morbid curiosity.) _

 

I'll admit that perhaps it's bias talking when I refer to Nightstalkers as destructive. Taking a more objective look, it's debatably Voidwalkers that are the more destructive.  The only defense a well thrown nova bomb offers is a powerful offense. There's nothing kind in pulling the life from another being for your own use.  Perhaps it's just Voidwalkers who use the Void selfishly and recklessly. I like to think I approach it with more care than that.  I'm pointedly aware of my own Light at all times, not just in the heat of battle.  The gentle hum in my bones soothes me at the end of the day.  The feeling of safety that comes with knowing I have a tool to save myself should it be too dangerous for Leshya to do the saving. It was the first thing I felt when I woke, and I expect it will be the last thing I feel when I take my truly final breath.

 

It's important to respect the Void, but it is no more dangerous than Arc or Solar.  All that matters is how it's used, and there's more than enough fear in the world without looking for it in your own hands.

  
_ (The last paragraphs and set of initials at the bottom appear to be hurriedly scribbled, almost completely illegible by the end.  You notice some soot on your fingers as you tuck the papers back into the journal, and you hurriedly wipe it off.  You wonder why you're even picking through these journals to begin with.) _


	3. Notes on Recovery

_ (You don’t expect to find a note left here.  You recognize the handwriting well enough to know it was also written by this Avin person.  It was complete chance that you even found it, you probably shouldn’t even have been creeping through the little hollow crannies in the Tower wall, left from the Red War.  You certainly didn’t expect to find a little stash of half assembled Golden Age trinkets and stack of papers.  Most papers seem to be drafts of schematics for the trinkets, and you wish you could puzzle them out.  But the note left in there could be understood, and your curiosity kept you from just ignoring it.) _

 

I’m worried about Leshya.  Ever since I started talking to Zak again, he’s been...off.  I didn’t expect him to go back to normal, I know it took me a while to adjust, is still taking me time to do so.  But…  Someone who didn’t understand would say that there was no way for a Ghost to show emotions.  If you spend any time at all around one, Guardian or not, you quickly learn that that’s not the case.  Even if were impossible for him to physically show his distaste, there would be no denying the quiet  _ fury _ that I can feel through our bond.

 

He called me a fool the first time I went back to the cabin.  Asked me why I went, what I was hoping to gain.  I wasn’t sure then, and even now I’m not sure.  But I said that I had to go, because even if I were to decide to never see him again, Zak at least deserved the courtesy of me saying goodbye.  Lesh didn’t need to voice his distaste for me to feel it.  I didn’t think much of it.  Even writing this I’m not sure I’d be able to give him an answer if he asked me that question again.

 

I thought things would get easier as I healed, as we healed.  But, there are some days where I’m convinced that were a Ghost able to hold a gun, given the choice between a Cabal and Zak, he’d shoot Zak.  He doesn’t call me a fool anymore, at least.  I’m sure he still thinks it, though.  Am I even healing?  Or does it just seem like it?  Lesh thinks I should talk to him, but what do I even say?  It's hard enough to think, much less speak.

 

I know he was worried about my foray into thanatonautics.  I know he told Zak about it, there’s no other way that Hunter could have known, could have confronted me about it.  Maybe he feels some kind of guilt over what happened?  But even so, would that guilt have been enough to fuel such hatred?  Even when we’re all trying to make amends, to heal?  I just want to understand, but I don’t know how to ask.  

 

I don’t know if it’s possible for a Ghost to burn themselves out by means of emotion alone...but I know that I don’t want to find out.  Is there nothing I can do, or am I still just going to be a fool?

  
_ (This entry seems like it was written in a rush, and lacks any kind of signature this time.  Considering the subject, you wouldn’t be surprised if it was.  It seems like something that would have been written in absence of the Ghost in question, and Ghosts were rarely far from their Guardians.  You try to put the note and schematics back the way you found them, then you leave before their owner comes along again.) _


End file.
